'Platoon' Is History

Published: February 20, 1987

To the Editor:

The notion that the American public is at last willing to face the realities of the Vietnam War, maintained in your article on the success of the movie ''Platoon'' (Feb. 9), is askew. I believe the message is precisely the opposite.

Time has passed since the event, as you point out, and now the Vietnam War has faded into the genre of a historical war with pictures and novels able to be viewed and read as dramatic accounts of American soldiering under duress, much like those evoking World War II. ''Platoon,'' for all its gritty realism, is not, I believe, disturbing to the American public precisely because it is no longer seen as a reality, for all its realism. Now it has the protective coating of long ago and far away. DONALD I. FINE New York, Feb. 9, 1987